


In Scarlet Cotton

by pennywife (orphan_account)



Category: The Handmaid's Tale (TV)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Heavy Angst, POV First Person, Rape/Non-con Elements, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:22:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24932200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/pennywife
Summary: I am not here. I am not in this room.
Relationships: Commander Joseph Lawrence/June Osborne | Offred
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	In Scarlet Cotton

I am not here. I am not in this room. I can feel the sweat pooling behind my knees. I can hear Commander Lawrence’s wife’s staccato wails through the drywall; but I swear to Christ I am not really here. 

It’s taking so long. I want to tell him to hurry, but I’m afraid it might only make this take longer. 

“You can...” My voice catches on a gag. I turn my face away, squeezing my eyes shut as I force out the words, “You can go harder.”   
  
He looks at me with that same look in his eyes from minutes before, the one that had made him seem so much smaller than I am. I had had to help him through this. I had had to comfort him through the act of my own rape.

“Are you sure?” He asks. He acts like this hurts him. 

He’s hurting me too, now. It isn’t like before, a mild discomfort like a papercut to the tip of my finger or the stinging of a gnat against the bend of my leg. It’s too deep, too rough, and surely when they check me for the pearled fluid of his come they’ll find blood there, too. Blood. Red. The color of sin.   
  
_Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful bitch._ _  
_

I don’t turn my head to look away anymore, the way I had turned the first time a commander’s wife had held down my arms. I look him right in the face, and I think in my mind all the things I wish I could say to him out loud. 

_What do I look like, to you? What do I look like all draped in scarlet cotton, like blood washed over my body? I bet I look pretty simple down here. I am not a human being, a living vessel that loves and breathes and can scream until my throat gives out. I am a pair of eyes that can be gouged. I am a mouth that can be sewn. I am a clit that can be sliced off and thrown into a tiny silver pail._ _  
_ _  
_ _This is the world you created. You do realize that; don’t you, you bureaucratic fuck?_ _  
_

Hatred rattles in me. Hatred, and the creaking of the bed when the iron railing bangs against the wall. He breathes in my face and he smells like soap. He smells like good bourbon, and tobacco, and the ceremony. He’s looking down at me through his glasses with eyes the same color as my husband’s and I want to scream at him to hurry the fuck up but I don’t. 

I am not here. I am not in this room.   
  



End file.
